Prayer has been confusing me the past few years. Something somewhere in me has been resisting praying--at least in the way I've usually prayed.
Ironically, even though prayer has seemed more distant God has seemed deep down every cell.
The best way I know to say this is that prayer (in the old way) felt useless or redundant. "Why am I asking God to do what God already wants to do?!"
That seemed dumb. I felt dumb praying that way.
I kept doing it, however, knowing that prayer is conversation with God--even though I was feeling disfluent.
Gradually, very gradually, the old flow came back--though it's moving in the 'wrong' direction. I think Jesus spoke to this when he said an underground stream of living water would well up in us.
Rather than our prayers rising up to God it seems more like God's prayers welling up in us.
At this point, God's prayers seem pretty much the same as God's love--love that comes with concrete agendas--for this person or that one, for this action or another. God...filling us up.
Maybe it's simpler than I guessed.
Resting in God's love, feeling it, listening to it, accepting it, soaking it up, following it, doing it.
